What does the end result of your hopes and dreams and goals really look like? Do you know?

Without knowing exactly, to the tee, what your desired outcome will be … what do you have to hold on to when the going gets tough?

Most of us resort to thinking what we don’t want when we are faced with a challenge and low and behold, what we usually get in response to that is temporary relief but ultimately we never really solve the issue and it always resurfaces!

Take trying to lose weight. You are having a bad day and you want to eat that tuna fish sandwich to soothe your pain, but you know it’s not good for you and it will blow your plan. So do you visualize your lean, strong, sleek new physique to help you get past it? Or do you think about why you can’t have it and get pissed and feel crappy enough to for sure not eat it now!!!

Do you see how the two scenarios will have a completely different outcome both in the short run and the long run?

Let me know your thoughts on this.

We are about to ring out the old and in with the new year and along with that comes our resolutions to do better, be healthier, make more money, be kinder, exercise regularly and more. Why is it that we decide to fall into the trap of making resolutions or commitments at the beginning of every year that rarely get kept? Is the whole idea of New Years resolutions becoming a continuous set up for failure and disappointment?

When you look at the top 2 resolutions that occur throughout the world every year it is consistently: make more money and get in shape/lose weight. Over and over again, people decide that this is the year they are going to finally live the life they really want to live. Get healthy, take off that excess weight, eat better, exercise often and all the benefits that this healthy lifestyle affords will be theirs. We see a huge increase in the activity at local gyms, YMCA’s, walking/running paths and sales of exercise equipment soar after the new year. Only to be brought right back to the normal flow around Feb 15th as statistics seem to show.

So what is it that makes people 1) make the resolution in the first place over and over again and not really wake up to the fact that they keep making the same commitment and keep failing? 2) why do people quit? Why do people give up and why is it easier to go back to the old unhealthy lifestyle when getting and being healthy has so many rewards? I am perplexed.

I welcome your insight and comments.

Here’s to a happy holiday season to all!

The one good thing about diets is that there’s always a reason to start one. There’s a never-ending buffet of reasons to lose weight. I want to lose weight before the first day of school. I’m going to lose weight before so-and-so’s birthday party. I really want to lose weight before my cousin’s wedding—everyone will be so surprised to see the new me. Sometimes, the biggest motivation to drop a few dress sizes is one very important special event.

Then, you dream. Prom is coming up. Here’s my chance! I’m going to lose a lot of weight and show everybody how amazing I look. They’re all going to be so impressed. I can hear it now. “Lisa, oh my goodness. You look fabulous!” “Where did you get that dress? It does absolute wonders for your new figure.” Or how about every fat girls dream, when the hottest guy in school walks up and says, “Hey, Lisa. You look great. Do you want to dance?”

You imagine trying on dresses of every color, shape, and style. It doesn’t matter—after all, you’re going to look gorgeous in every single one of them. You envision yourself in clothes that fit like a glove, and for a change, you like what you see. Gone is the old you, as well as your fat clothes. This will be your time to shine!

Special events, like dances, sent me into fantasyland. This time it would be different. This time I really would lose the weight and people would recognize me and lavish me with attention. All I had to do was lose 50 pounds in 2 months; then, I’d be the best looking girl in the whole school and the boys and girls would suddenly swam around me.

Aside from the fact that losing 50 pounds in 2 months is totally unrealistic, this made up play-by-play is also unrealistic. Go back and take a look at the things we say to ourselves. Wow, who is this inner voice? If your friend said something like that to you, would they be your friend? NO!! Then, why do we allow that voice to exist within ourselves, setting us up for a fall each and every time? Like a rerun, this scene plays itself over and over every time something special comes along. We get excited and build ourselves up, setting impossible goals and standards, only to be disillusioned and completely disappointed when reality once again drags us back down.

The event that was supposed to be so special and transform our life often becomes one of the most miserable ones in our memory bank. When we see ourselves as something we aren’t, and maybe will never be, we escalate our feelings of inadequacy over the person we are. Sure, there is room for improvement, but by letting our imagination run wild, we failed to allow ourselves to consider anything less. When we set high standards, like losing a ton of weight for a special event, we don’t give ourselves the option of making less progress toward our goal. Oh, no. In our minds, it’s all or nothing. Unfortunately, this way of thinking leaves us on the nothing side more often than the alternative.

Usually, the inner voice that emcees the magical moment when I would reveal the newer, thinner, and more beautiful me became my worst enemy when I failed to lose a single pound. It would start out so optimistic and sure of itself, but as a week went by without losing any weight, it would convince me that I could still do it. I still had time. Then, it would let me down big time the week of the dance, when I still didn’t have a date, a dress, or a different body to take myself to the dance in.

That inner voice is not our friend. We allow it to judge us, often cruelly, and hurt us before we let it go on a tangent, releasing wild and unreasonable expectations for us to live up to. Why do we give it permission to do that? Why do we give ourselves permission to do that? After all, that inner voice is no stranger. It’s reared its ugly head over and over again, and each time, we fall for it. Each time, we give it the benefit of the doubt that this time won’t be like the last time. This time, it will be different. After all, this time is special! But, weren’t they all special?

What special events did your inner voice get you all excited about? Did any of them pan out the way you thought they would, or were you like me, and all too often left with the disappointment of failing to live up to your own expectations? Before I could stifle my inner voice and keep it from hurting me yet another time, I had to figure out just why I allowed myself to treat myself so poorly. Answering that million dollar question was necessary before I could even begin to see the truth in my actions. Only then, would I be able to change them.

When I eventually and finally reflected on my life as an overweight child, I became aware of the how much pain and sadness had consumed it. My struggle with food was a constant one I carried with me everywhere I went. The fact that I was overweight in a society which puts so much negative influence on weight wasn’t just a physical characteristic to me. It defined the person who I became in every area. Being fat became so much more than how I looked—it was the one characteristic I gauged my entire self worth on.

I was my own worst enemy, subjecting myself to a continuous barrage of negative self talk, demeaning myself, my appearance, and my social life. The truth be told, I had convinced myself that I had no redeeming qualities. My inner voiced convinced me that I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough. Not only did I view myself as fat and ugly, but I also managed to convince myself that I was a total failure. In my mind, I couldn’t do anything, or better stated, I couldn’t do anything right. I lived with the belief that no one loved me, even my parents. I’d somehow managed to believe that if I did something wrong, my parents would actually abandon me. Above all, I distanced myself from others by telling myself I wasn’t like other girls. In my mind, nobody liked me at home or at school.

The majority of my days were spent struggling with a modicum of self worth, which I’d disregard when I got back home where I could safely return to being my own worst enemy. The first thing I’d do when I walked in the door was choose my weapon—FOOD. Food made me feel better. I ate because I felt bad or hurt. I ate when I was sad or bored. I ate when I was depressed, and I ate when I was lonely. When I had something to eat, I had a companion. I ate for all those reasons and more. Food was the answer to everything that ailed me, and it was my reward whenever I was content or happy. It satisfied all of my emotional needs—but that satisfaction was short term. After I was finished stuffing my feelings with food, I immediately went to a place where I’d become all too familiar, a place of regret, discomfort, guilt, and, yes, even shame for what I’d eaten. Now, you can imagine the lengths I went to in order to remain in a continual state of feeling terrible about myself.

Looking back on it, if there was joy in my life, I rarely allowed myself to relish in it. I punished myself by habitually reinforcing the fact that I wasn’t worthy of being happy. This was a trait I took with me throughout my childhood and into my adult years. I knew that being fat sucked, but it was the only life I knew. Somehow, I convinced myself that it was the only life I would ever know.

My sudden, but revealing, awareness of my feelings about my weight and my life has made me much more observant about the truth. I found that in order to make long lasting changes in my life, it’s vital that I am honest with myself—100%, brutally honest. It was time for an honest assessment of who I was and what I really wanted. But, there was just one thing in the way—was I capable of exercising that degree of honesty? And if I was, did I even know the answer to those questions anymore?

When we talk about the truth, the box we open is often much larger than we imagined. Are slight misrepresentations considered to be falsehoods? Does the truth only pertain to the things we say to others, or does it apply to the things we tell ourselves, as well? Does being truthful go so far that we must examine our beliefs and whether or not they still honestly represent the person we’ve become, not the person we used to be? Does the truth hurt, and if it really does, why? Finding out those answers can provide you with some insight that will explain a lot about yourself and how you deal with many issues in your life.

How long has it been since you did some soul searching to reveal what the truth really means to you? It didn’t come easy or quickly for me. As a matter of fact, it’s something that I’ve struggled with for a long time. As I explored my beliefs, issues with the truth traced back to my childhood. Even as a child, I yearned to impress other people. So, I often manufactured myself to be someone better than I really was. Because I had self esteem issues, I didn’t have a very good opinion of myself and never thought of myself as anything very special. To make up for that, I told “stories.” To me, they weren’t lies—just little misrepresentations made so others would have a reason to accept and like me. The stories I told weren’t about other people and were never meant to hurt anyone, so I convinced myself that there was no harm done in embellishing my life a bit.

Frankly, my stories weren’t made up entirely to impress other people. Their purpose was also to impress myself, making me feel better about the real me by creating a new, more exciting me. The stories I told myself and others served to protect me from the hurt I would surely face if I came face to face with the truth. That hurt was there, but by lying, I didn’t have to deal with it.

What stories to you tell yourself?

Life in the Fat Lane

Being the last one picked by the team captain for kick ball sucks.  Not being able to zip your jeans sucks.  Name calling sucks.  Ugly clothes suck.  Being ignored really sucks.

But nothing sucks more that being fat.  Being fat sucks.  It really does.  I know what it feels like to be humiliated because no one wanted me on their team in gym class.  And let me tell you, the dates for prom weren’t exactly line up outside my door.  People have commented or whispered about my appearance an my size, and I spent years wishing that I could do anything, anything, besides try on another pair of jeans that didn’t fit.  I felt invisible, not included and not notices, when I was in a group.  Well, I guess you could say that I wasn’t quite invisible because, to be honest, it was hard to miss me.  I was fat.

Life in the fat lane sucks.  It’s a life that revolves around food.  Food was got the reason for my problems and the answer to my problems.  I used it for both punishment and reward.  My reliance on it as an emotional vice made it both my comfort and my misery.

Becoming a “big girl”, I was soon faced with self esteem issues that were directly related to my weight and my looks.  But, my weight and looks weren’t the problem, it was how I felt about them that was the most devastating.  The majority of those thoughts and feeling were self defeating and negative, creating even lower self esteem and continuing the cycle of feeling bad, eating, and then feeling even worse because I did.  The cycle repeated itself like shampoo directions, “lather, rinse, repeat”; except, my cycle read “eat, regret, repeat, eat, regret, repeat”.  There were no directions telling me how or when to stop.

Life in the fat lane slowed me down.  It killed my confidence as my weight continually subjected me to the intolerance and disapproval too many overweight people face every day.  I learned the hard way how it felt to be completely ignored by people, even if I was standing right next to them.  My opinions held little weight, simply because I was overweight.  Too often, I felt like the world had excused me from participating in life, dismissing my feeling, thoughts and presence.  And it was mostly because I was fat.